


Smells like home, smells like hope

by Castillon02



Series: Bond Women Loving Women [11]
Category: James Bond (Craig movies)
Genre: Domestic Bliss, F/F, Fluff, Hair Washing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-03
Updated: 2018-08-03
Packaged: 2019-06-21 04:00:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,906
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15549135
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Castillon02/pseuds/Castillon02
Summary: Eve worries that her domestic bliss with Madeleine is doomed from the start. Madeleine reassures her.





	Smells like home, smells like hope

**Author's Note:**

> For Moneypenny March, 2017. Added here for archival purposes.

Eve slammed her car door shut. Past midnight; she kept setting new bloody records for her time getting home to Madeleine, whose position as a shrink at Six had hours far more regular than Eve’s. For some reason other countries couldn’t keep their crises to between nine and five GMT. **  
**

The argument about Eve being a workaholic hadn’t happened for them yet, but she remembered how it had been with Charlie, with Laura, with every-fucking-significant-other since secondary school when she’d studied for her A-levels a little too frequently for her first boyfriend’s taste. Even though she and Madeleine had talked about her work and Madeleine had said she understood, had said she was an introvert who needed alone time anyway, anticipation always dropped into the pit of Eve’s stomach like a rock when she came home past ten, eleven, and now twelve.

Would this be the time that the hidden resentment spilled out? What if Madeleine said she regretted moving in together, since Eve wasn’t there to be home with anyway? Eve had tried the romantic moving-in thing twice before, and both times had lasted less than a year.

She walked through the underground carpark to the lift, keeping a habitual eye on her surroundings: no unfamiliar vehicles, no would-be assailants lurking in the shadows. As she got into the lift, she let her eyes close for a moment: even with an uncertain reception awaiting her, she was almost home.

The dark flat smelled subtly of lemon; Eve breathed deep as she stepped inside and shut the door quietly behind her, feeling her shoulders slump and her stomach start to unclench. “You can train your brain to know what safety smells like,” Madeleine had told her, and then they’d dotted drops of lemon oil at various places around the flat. Damned if it didn’t work.

This was their flat: the flat where Madeleine’s magnetized kitchen knives and Eve’s pile of take-away menus were both stuck to the refrigerator in the kitchen; the flat where they’d invited Bond for dinner and he’d snarked, “Your aim’s getting better, I think you’ve hit a vital organ this time” while giving a pointed glance at Madeleine, but had left with a smile on his face; the flat where Eve had invited Madeleine to watch horror movies on the sofa last October, one of their first dates, and Madeleine had accidentally left her scarf and had gone on leaving things here ever since.   

Eve hung her coat on the hook, dropped her handbag on the shelf underneath, and followed the faint hint of light down the corridor to the half-open door of their bedroom.

“Welcome home,” Madeleine said, looking up from her book with a warm smile. She looked cozy in her flannel pajama bottoms and one of Eve’s faded Imperial College t-shirts.

The weight of the exhaustion Eve had been holding off fell on her all at once. In that moment, the bed looked almost as attractive as Madeleine. She wanted nothing more than to crawl beneath the sheets.  

Reading her face, Madeleine said, “If you go to sleep without a shower you’ll only be grumpy in the morning.”

In reply, Eve dropped on top of her, strategically tugging Madeleine’s shirt up as she did, and promptly started blowing a raspberry in her belly.

“Eve!” Madeleine protested, giggling. She tossed her book to relative safety at the other end of their bed and growled, snapping her teeth like a puppy in Eve’s direction as she wriggled and wrestled her way out from under her. “Come on,” she said as soon as her feet found the floor, taking Eve’s hands in hers. “Let’s wash up.” She pulled with an exaggerated grunt of effort.

Eve obligingly got to her feet, pecking Madeleine on the cheek before letting go of her hands. She loved how playful Madeleine could be—and she loved that a playful Madeleine was a happy Madeleine, pleased to see her and not nursing any resentment over her absence. They were okay, and now Eve’s hindbrain knew it.

“Have you eaten?” Madeleine asked as they walked down the corridor.

“Fish and chips with the boys at work,” Eve answered, grinning at Madeleine’s wrinkled nose; she hated fish. “I’d have brought you some if I thought you’d eat it.” She led the way into the bathroom and shucked her dress into the hamper; dry cleaning would get any wrinkles out.

“You can bring me some Moroccan food next time you eat that,” Madeleine said, neatly folding her pajamas and setting them on the counter. “You know what I like.”

“I do,” Eve said, letting her eyes wander up and down Madeleine’s naked body, no less strong or sexy for being a little rounder in the thighs and belly than it had been when they’d met during Madeleine’s first week at Six. Domesticity looked good on her.

Madeleine smirked under her gaze. “Let me help you with that,” she said, gesturing at Eve’s bra.

Eve turned her back to Madeleine, dismissing habitual thoughts of behind-you-she-could-hurt-kill-wound with another deep breath of lemon, with the transparent sounds of Madeleine’s bare feet on the linoleum, with the gentle touch of Madeleine’s cool hands running up and down her back, shoulders to waist. Her breath was warm on the back of Eve’s neck, her lips soft. After a few moments, her hands stopped at the clasp of Eve’s bra and unhooked it.

Eve sighed with relief as the cool air hit her breasts. “Freedom,” she said, and let her gaze swing to the shower while Madeleine set her bra on the counter.

The shower was a large square model, with a glass door and two showerheads. Eve had got permission to install the second one, and she and Madeleine had watched a lot of Youtube videos about plumbing and then laughed at each other as they tried to be handy. The celebration once they’d succeeded had been well worth all the swearing.

Now that she was naked and here with Madeleine, also naked, a shower seemed like a much better idea than sleep.

She turned the water on, gave it a few moments to heat up, and then stepped in front of the spray at the back corner. Hot water rained down on her head, neck, and shoulders. Eve gave a shuddering exhale as it splashed over her. Yes, this had been a good idea.

A few moments later, there was a brief rush of cold air as Madeleine stepped into the shower after her, her hair covered by a plastic blue shower cap. “I’ll wash it in the morning, like I usually do,” she said, turning on the water on her side of the shower. “But it’s a shampoo day for you, no?”

“Mmm,” Eve said, which meant that it was, and she was glad she’d be able to let it air dry tonight instead of fighting with the blow dryer tomorrow morning, but she needed the water to wash a little more tiredness out of her mind before she could muster the energy to care about hygiene.  

Madeleine smacked a damp kiss between her shoulder blades and then reached down into Eve’s corner of the shower to pick up her shampoo. “Why don’t we do it like this,” she said, holding up the shampoo. “You can let me do it.”  

“If you’re gentle with me,” Eve said, keeping a teasing tone while secretly wondering if there was a pained scalp in her future. Madeleine’s hair naturally fell straight and she could be enviably brisk and economical with it, while Eve’s curls demanded a little more care and attention. (Eve maybe, might have been, just a little bit tenderheaded.) 

But Madeleine said, “With you?  _Toujours_ ,” with such confidence that Eve had to smile. She didn’t normally go in for significant others washing her hair, but it was worth a try when Madeleine sounded like that.

“Let me just get it properly soaked,” Eve said, ducking her head fully under the stream of water for a few long moments.

Meanwhile, Madeleine’s hands wandered over her shoulders, down her back, over the curves of her arse—

Eve jumped and nearly snorted water up her nose while Madeleine snickered behind her. She was ticklish there!

“Less groping, more hair-washing,” Eve commanded, suppressing a grin at Madeleine’s unrepentant face.

“ _Bon_ ,” Madeleine said agreeably, and positioned Eve in the middle of the shower, where the two sprays could warm her body but were too low to soak her hair. Then she poured herself another handful of shampoo, the first having been wasted on Eve’s back and washed down the drain. Behind Eve, her hands rubbed together with a soft, slick sound under the patter of the shower water, and then came to a rest on top of Eve’s head. “Yes?” Madeleine asked.

The warm, wet pressure of Madeleine’s hands on her hair was a bit strange but also a bit good.

“Yes,” Eve said.

And Madeleine really was sweet with her: she stopped at the first sign of Eve tensing, and her fingers scritched pleasantly over Eve’s scalp while she rubbed the shampoo first at the base of her curls and then further down. Eve found her head drooping towards her chest, her back slumping in Madeleine’s direction, as the water and the gentle touches lulled her back into drowsiness. “You’re so good,” she murmured.

“So are you,” Madeleine said. And after another gentle minute or two, more head massage than shampooing by then, she added, “Time to rinse.”

Eve ducked under the spray and did the rinsing herself, ruffling her hair free of shampoo as quick as she could. “Bed,” she said, reduced to monosyllabic grunts. “Thanks,” she added, and pressed a muzzy kiss to Madeleine’s cheek.

“ _De rien_ ,” Madeleine said. A minute later, as they were toweling off, Madeleine said, “They worked you hard today,” very casually, and put her shower cap back in its drawer.

Eve stiffened.

“It’s okay,” Madeleine said next to her. “They don’t work you this long every day, after all, and as I’ve said before, I like my time alone. But I haven’t said—” She took a deep breath.

Eve waited.

“I like being able to take care of you,” Madeleine said finally. “When you’re like this, tired and easy, and you relax for me like you do for no one else—I like it.” She pressed her forehead against Eve’s shoulder.

Eve gave Madeleine’s hip a friendly pat, her tired brain processing the revelation but also incapable of any more significant action. “You’re wonderful,” she said honestly. “That’s good to know, and I will appreciate you very much in the morning. Now let’s both of us breathe in a bunch of lemon and go to sleep, hmm?”

“I think we should be able to manage that,” Madeleine said with a smile that seemed to mirror the relief uncoiling in Eve’s gut.

They fell into bed, Eve naked because she couldn’t be bothered dressing, and Madeleine back in Eve’s t-shirt and a pair of flannel sleep trousers.

Eve took deep, almost-asleep breaths, smelling Madeleine’s shower soap next to her, and the clean scent of the sheets, and the lemon in the air. Safety. Gentleness. Understanding. No resentment. Their flat. Their life together.

Maybe she and Madeleine would make it a year together after all. Maybe longer than that. Maybe…

Eve knew what safety smelled like. Now she knew what hope smelled like too.   

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! Constructive criticism is welcome. <3


End file.
